Quotes from Lee’s speech yesterday. Straits Times:

THE United States must be an important part of any new East Asian framework, Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew said on Wednesday, cautioning against defining the region in closed or racial terms.

‘Whatever the challenges, US core interests require that it remains the superior power on the Pacific. To give up this position would diminish America’s role throughout the world.’

‘It would be a serious mistake for the region to define East Asia in closed, or worse, in racial terms,’ he told about 450 political and business elites at the Mandarin Oriental hotel.